Tim Bray, the director of Web technologies at Sun, said at the OpenOffice.org conference in Slovenia late last week that the file format developed by standards body OASIS has the potential to transform the world as much as the World Wide Web did.
Tim Bray, the director of Web technologies at Sun, said at the OpenOffice.org conference in Slovenia late last week that the file format developed by standards body OASIS has the potential to transform the world as much as the World Wide Web did.
CEO of company says Product can change the world. Film coming up next.
No, but really – this is a huge “IF”. It won’t change anything unless it gets used in more than 1% of computers. I’m all for OASIS but let’s change the world _first_, and then say how much it has changed the world.
you know microsoft controls the market and they won’t allow it because peopel could easily switch to other products. same goes for corel–people still use it because of the format
CEO of company says Product can change the world. Film coming up next.
* OpenDocument isn’t a product.
* Tim Bray co-invented XML and XML name spaces; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Bray .
What do you not understand about the word “can”. He is not saying the product “is” changing everything or “might” change everything, but simply has the potential for future change.
its yet another document “standard” that just happens to be easier for everyone to support because they can get the exact details on the format. Big whoop-de-fscking-doo. It’s nothing revolutionary.
I think, if and as, state and national gov, start using and standarizing on opendocument and if open doc gets ISO cerified. yes, I do belive things can and will change greatly.
once opendoc gets ISO, then, things like internation banks and other big ISO companys will start using it.
-Nex6
-nex6.blogspot.com
If states start requiring it, then the entities that do business with the state will need to provide documents in that format. Then Microsoft will be dragged, kicking and screaming to the standards table.
It is inevitable that OpenDocument will become the standard. It may take a few years, but it WILL happen.
I, for one, welcome it.
marytee
OpenDocument does have the capacity to change the landscape of personal and business computing. Unfortunately, however, de facto standards (i.e., Word/Excel/PowerPoint) often have more clout than de jure standards, even if the latter are preferable and technologically superior. The advantage the Web had was that it didn’t have anything else to compete with; no coroporation had developed a simple, powerful networked hypertext system before. XHTML2/XForms aren’t taking off quite as quickly, mainly because they have to compete against their original incarnation, HTML.
Now I will say this one thing: The increasing interest of governments in open standards could be an indication that there is a sea change coming, and perhaps OpenDocument will come out on top. One government (I think it was Massachusetts) explicitly stated they were choosing OpenDocument because of the open specs.
Well said.
Well, the reason XHTML 2.0 isn’t “taking off” is probably due to the fact that it’s not even finished yet.
Film at eleven – go check out the news sites, this is going to be SO COOL!!!!!
I don’t see anything yet…any details you can offer?
Link, please!
First comment linked from Google News about 15 minutes ago;
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=1959
“October 3, 2005
Google-Sun mash-up planned
-Posted by Dan Farber @ 10:57 am
Tomorrow, Sun CEO Scott McNealy and Google CEO Eric Schmidt are holding a press conference to discuss a “collaboration effort.” Given that Dr. Schmidt was at Sun from 1983 to 1997 and defined Sun’s Internet strategy (according to his bio on Google’s corporate Web site), it’s not totally surprising that the two companies would figure out mutually beneficial ways to collaborate. And, Sun has been busy over the last year building bridges, including with Microsoft, although a Sun-Google accord would fall into the “disruptive to Microsoft” category. Google does big distributed infrastructure, and Sun knows something about that topic. Java, which was developed under Schmidt’s watch as Sun’s CTO, powers platform-neutral applications, and Google is busy becoming more of an applications company. There will be plenty more speculation today. Stay tuned… “
More — very scant — details…
Web cast: 10:30pst/13:30est(1:30pm est). Adjust for your local times as necessary. (EST = GMT – 5; 15:30GMT)
Sun’s very thin page about what is happening Tuesday, October 4th;
http://www.sun.com/events/google/
“Sun and Google News Conference
Tuesday, October 4, 2005
10:30 a.m. PT/1:30 p.m. ET
Computer History Museum
Mountain View, CA
Please join Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems Chairman and CEO and Dr. Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman of the Executive Committee and CEO as they discuss a new collaborative effort between the two companies.
Join us Tuesday for the live Webcast.”
Also;
http://www.betanews.com/article/Google_and_Sun_to_Collaborate/11283…
“Google and Sun to Collaborate
By Nate Mook, BetaNews
October 3, 2005, 1:37 PM
Google chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt will sit down with Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy on Tuesday morning to outline a collaborative effort between the two companies. It’s not clear what the partnership will entail, but Sun has already begun to hype the event.
The news conference will take place at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California and webcast live at 10:30am PST. The announcement will mark the second high-profile joint venture for Google in as many weeks – the search giant recently forged a partnership with NASA to collaborate on technology and space research.”
This article gives a good background to the international political maneuvering behind the scenes:
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3414101
I think MS could be forced by the EU and other government pressure to either make MS Office compatible with OpenDocument or to open up the Office ML documents format to be unencumbered by by patents and copyright limitations.
Tim Bray could be right, we are about to see a major sea change here.
The formats are already not patent encumbered. Protection from any applicable patents is already part of MS’ licenses.
The formats are already not patent encumbered. Protection from any applicable patents is already part of MS’ licenses.
Actually, “Microsoft Office Open XML” — the format Microsoft Office 12 documents will save in by default — is patent encumbered and limited.
This is not an idle retort. You can verify it yourself by listening to the unedited open meeting held by Masachusetts Commonwealth Governement technology group on the adoption of the OpenDocument standard;
http://www.peapodcast.com/msc-oss-sig/MTLC-MAOpenFormats-2005-09-16…
(This event was just under 2 hours long and was very well organized. This is not your typical press event with deceptive sound bites. Additional links; http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2005-09-26-a.html )
* Microsoft sent a well qualified represntative. (Listen about 1/2-3/4 of the way through for the MS rep.)
* Adobe sent a well qualfied representitive. (Just after the MS rep.)
* A group of Mass. government technical leaders were there. (Constant questions and comments.)
* The licence is not transferable — for use in a for-sale product or a for-free (open source or not) format. (Listen to the back-and-forth comments with Mass. Gov. and MS reps plus comments from Adobe as a contrast.)
* The whole thing was recorded and Microsoft’s rep does not dispute the patent issues and others such as the format being licenced as a read-only (!!!) document format without schemas (that’s right, you can’t do page layouts with the no-$$$ licence only read data).
* PDF and OpenDocument do not suffer from these issues.
If you have better information, please provide it along with answers to why Microsoft’s technical rep did not dispute the issues mentioned above when specifically given the chance to by Mass. government officials who clearly asked for explanations in an open forum.
because I’m already using OpenDocuments. Notice, I say *OpenDocument* and not …
It will never really catch on in the U.S. unless the federal gov’t designates it as the required format for doing business with them. But I don’t see that happening. Microsoft has too many friends in Washington now.
Europe is a different story. They aren’t as easily swayed by Microsoft as the U.S.
I’m able to change the specs on a few projects…so I’m including OpenDocument as an acceptable format. (Note: OpenDocument not the product/project specific StarOffice/OpenOffice.Org.)
What do you know… google for ‘Massachusetts’ and ‘opendocument’ – there you’ll get your exclusion of MS and government backing for OD — in the entire state…
Is the new MS Office going to support the OpenDocument standard? If not, it’s not going to useful on the short run. After all, MS is the biggest player in this market, and it will take the market literary years to force MS into it, if that’s going to happen at all.
Oh, I doubt it. They already have a controlling share on word processors; why should they intentionally disrupt their own control by adding a new format?
Besides, even so, look how long it’s taken them to support .png fully (probably not even in Internet Explorer 7), that was standardized back in what? 1996? 1997?
The U.S. Govt should adopt OpenDoc as the standard just like Mass. did. Just like roads, no company should be able to dictate what vehicles should be able to go on them. MS shouldn’t be dictating any file format standards.
Pretty much everyone can read JPEG images regardless of operating system or hardware platform. JPEG is a truly widespread, nearly universal and well accepted.
This has given us an easy, convenient and unified way to look at pictures of naken women. But has the JPEG file format “turned everything inside out?” Of course not. It’s just a file format. And Tim is just an overly optimistic moron hoping to recapture past glories.
This is not a big surprise. The majority of the stuff Sun does turns to crap. Sparcstation? Crap. Out-performed even back in the days by Intel Pentium. NFS is cool but PC-NFS is unmitigated, utter crap. Java? Used to be amazing and great, now little more than a bloated piece of stinking crap. Sun’s CEO? An arrogant idiot lacking any charisma who started with a rising star, full of incredible potential, perfect for capitalizing on the power of the Internet, and run it into the ground with one incompetent decision after another.
If Sun were to vanish this afternoon, OpenDocument wouldn’t. It’s an Oasis standard and will likely be an ISO standard within the year if not in the next 3 to 6 months.
If you have specific criticisms of the OpenDocument format, please mention them. Bashing Sun won’t get you very far as Sun is just a sponsor of the OpenDocument specifications and can no longer dictate how it will evolve, who uses it, or how they use it.
I’m a bit disappointed when people tries to create an hype without caring to explain anything. Mr. Bray doesn’t explain on which facts, anticipations, anything his hype has been built. While one could appreciate enthusiasm, that doesn’t mean that enthusiasm always turns into reality…
I wouldn’t compare OASIS to HTML. HTML was in the right place at the right moment. They needed a simple, lightweight standard to be transported on very slow lines and HTML was somewhat perfect. They needed a simple standard for a global project.
However, those times are gone. Yes, OASIS (if widespread accepted) could enhance data migration but in the end, I can’t see how that should cause a revolution. With a few pain you can already move data from a system to another and while this could make this process easier, I can’t see how it will cause a new revolution.
And Mr. Bray doesn’t explain that.
However, having a common file format is surely a good thing, don’t get me wrong…
Oh my, someone needs a reality check. Transform the world as much as the web?
Currently OpenOffice controls about 8% of the Word-Processing market. MS Word 2003 is at 6%.
Re: Digital Axis; MSFT is adding a new format named MS-XML in Office 12. Only Word 2003 or later can read it. Also note that MS-XML will be the default format in Office 12, so no one will be able to read the default format unless they upgrade to Office 2003 or Office 12.
Please note that Office is only useable on MS Windows and Mac OS. Why should we standardize our word-processing software on one vendor’s platform?
Once again, this is false. MS Office currently has XML formats that have been available for 2 years as part of Office 2003. Documents in these formats are readable in any application that has a licensed implementation for reading/writing the files. MS provides Office 2003 and several format viewers for this purpose. Open Office/Star Office provides support for the formats, and several third-party commercial products support the formats. When Office 12 XML formats are finalized, they will be supported directly by MS for Office 2000, XP, 2003, Office 12, and viewer applications. The license is the same as the current 2003 formats, so it’s expected Open/Star Office and other third-parties will also provide support just as with the current formats.
Open Office ans star Office don’t license the MSFT formats they reverse engineer them. That’s why the MS XML format is patented. So when someone does reverse engineer it MSFT can sue the living crap out of them. Mass. went through all this already. Massachuttes went with formats that are open to ANY body.
MS XML is limited to who can use it. Open Source products are specifically excluded by the way it is licensed. Star Office, and word Perfect would be as well unless they pay MSFT for the privillege.
Also of Note is that Word Perfect has annouced that the Open Document format will be supported natively in Word Perfect. It may not make it in this next release but soon enough.
That means OpenDocument will be supported by no less than 4 different word processors, where as MSXML will only be supported by MS Office.
If you want the ability to Pay less for word processing and have cross platform support your only option is with Open Document. Whether you pay for your software or not.
Exactly. Very good reply.
If OOo really reverse engineers Office XML instead of licensing it they’re simply doing a lot of unnecessary work. They should be able to interact with their licensed Office XML implementation the same way lgpl libraries interact with non-lgpl code. The same way I imagine the OOo code interacts with licensed, proprietary code when used for StarOffice.
GPL and other similarly licensed products (not Open Source in general) can’t directly interact with it. This is no different than other licenses which require attribution and prevent licenses such as the GPL from usurping the original license (pre-modded BSD and Apache licenses for instance).
The MS licenses refer to a “Licensed Implementation”, as only the code that handles reading/writing the formats. Only that code need carry the MS license. This could be modularized, seperating the rest of the application codebase from the MS-licensed code. It’s been done before. Why is this instance any different?
If OOo really reverse engineers Office XML instead of licensing it they’re simply doing a lot of unnecessary work. They should be able to interact with their licensed Office XML implementation the same way lgpl libraries interact with non-lgpl code. The same way I imagine the OOo code interacts with licensed, proprietary code when used for StarOffice.
They CAN’T LICENCE the “Microsoft Office Open XML” format because it’s NOT OPEN;
http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=12075&comment_id=39557
Specifically — listen to the audio link — the licence is;
* Read-only. (Yes, it’s XML, though the next reason kills read/write except in very limited situations without additional Microsoft software or additional licence restrictions.)
* Does not include schemas. (A necessary feature for formatting the document and writing useful converters.)
* Not transferable. (If I licence it, I can’t sell or give you my program. You have to get the licence from Microsoft seperately or I have to get another licence from Microsoft above and beyond the licence you read to allow me to sell or give the program to you.)
The only thing that OOo can do is reverse engineer the format and schemas and hope that Microsoft doesn’t file a patent lawsuit. Either that, or not support “Microsoft Office Open XML” because of these issues.
The posibility to enforce patents is one of the reasons for the “Microsoft Office Open XML” format and closed schemas, if not they could have made the licence transferable, include the schemas, and allow read/write without extra restrictions.
Hell, what do I know? I just listened to a Microsoft representitive tell me these things and not challenge people who asked him direct questions along those lines. Maybe he was mistaken?
The MS licenses refer to a “Licensed Implementation”, as only the code that handles reading/writing the formats. Only that code need carry the MS license. This could be modularized, seperating the rest of the application codebase from the MS-licensed code. It’s been done before. Why is this instance any different?
The licence isn’t transferable; I can’t give the binary or the source to you let alone even sell it. If we were part of the same organization, and the organization were licenced, there would be no problems. 3rd parties, though, throw a wrench into the works.
Be very careful before replying. I’m not writing this to show you up or pull your chain. These are real issues.
Comments after listening to the audio file:
In short, MA doesn’t fully understand the implications of their decision and are in for more trouble than they think. In Detail:
Mentioned many times was the lack of consideration for accessibility support. Neither PDF nor OpenDoc applications are accessibility-friendly.
No consideration of cost/employee/process impact. Flawed notion that standardization is seperate from procurement/cost issues. Incorrect ad hoc estimate of migration costs — the Office 12 formats do not require an upgrade to Office 12. They will be supported by Microsoft on Office 2000/XP/2003 and Office 12.
Conversion costs not considered. Likewise, neither was the ability to convert current formats to OpenDoc without data loss and how much of the process could be automated of need to be done manually because of this.
Definition of Open is restrictive:
Defined as 1)having no/minimal legal restriction 2)published/peer reviewed 3)Joint Stewardship (not multiple private entities)
The above could cut out many formats currently considered industry standards — particularly media formats.
MS urged to drop patent claims, publish their standard and make future changes as part of a stewardship:
Adobe currently has patent claims to PDF. Sun and IBM have claims on OpenDoc. In both the MS case and the Adobe/Sun/IBM case, relief from patent claims are given via the respective licenses. Further, forcing MS to make future changes by comittee is an encumberance Adobe doesn’t have to follow, and is thus discriminitory. A rough quote made by the MA rep about PDF being on the gray side further supports that it’s discriminitory.
A comment was made that you had to implement the full MS XML spec or you weren’t licensed. This is not true. MS’ license, like Adobe’s, says you have to output conforming docs or you can’t claim it’s MS XML nor be protected under the license. Even if you only output a subset of MS XML, (e.g., Open Office doesn’t support all of Word’s features so it only reads/writes what it can support), that XML still conforms to the schema definition.
From MS’ license:
Except as provided below, Microsoft hereby grants you a royalty-free license under Microsoft’s Necessary Claims to make, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise distribute Licensed Implementations solely for the purpose of reading and writing files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas. A “Licensed Implementation” means only those specific portions of a software product that read and write files that are fully compliant with the specifications for the Office Schemas.
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpatentlicense.asp
From Adobe’s license:
Accordingly, the following patents are licensed on a royalty-free, nonexclusive basis for the term of each patent and for the sole purpose of developing software that produces, consumes, and interprets PDF files that are compliant with the Specification…
[patent #s]
In addition, the following patent is licensed on a royalty-free, nonexclusive basis for its term and for the sole purpose of developing software that produces PDF files that are compliant with the Specification (specifically excluding, however, software that consumes and/or interprets PDF files): [patent #]
…
XDP patent license:
The above licenses are limited to only those rights required to implement the Specification and no others. That is to say, Adobe grants only those rights in the above patent(s) necessarily practiced to implement the Specification, and does not grant any rights not required to implement the Specification. The licenses do not grant the right to practice any patent covering other technologies, such as implementation techniques that are not explicitly disclosed in the Specification, nor does it allow the use of any patented feature for any purpose other than as set forth in the applicable license grant. Adobe has other patents in various fields, none of which are hereby licensed.
http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/support/topic_legal_noti…
False assumption that XML alone eases interstate/intergovernment/etc. document management/exchange.
Comment period short and included a 3-day weekend. They claim they’re not ignoring comments past the deadline. MDAA already talking about banning MS software. Not clear if there is total transparency in MA’s motives.
In short, MA doesn’t fully understand the implications of their decision and are in for more trouble than they think.
Well, they did ask questions and the questions were answered. If any person or company wanted to correct them, they could do so in this meeting or in previous ones.
Mentioned many times was the lack of consideration for accessibility support. Neither PDF nor OpenDoc applications are accessibility-friendly.
Actually, that was mentioned irt. OpenDocument. I’ll let Adobe speak for themselves;
Google search: “pdf accessibility site:adobe.com”
No consideration of cost/employee/process impact. Flawed notion that standardization is seperate from procurement/cost issues. Incorrect ad hoc estimate of migration costs — the Office 12 formats do not require an upgrade to Office 12. They will be supported by Microsoft on Office 2000/XP/2003 and Office 12.
Conversion costs not considered. Likewise, neither was the ability to convert current formats to OpenDoc without data loss and how much of the process could be automated of need to be done manually because of this.
This was covered multiple times; it’s not an implementation meeting, it’s a discussion of formats.
Definition of Open is restrictive:
Defined as 1)having no/minimal legal restriction 2)published/peer reviewed 3)Joint Stewardship (not multiple private entities)
It was clear to me; They said multiple times that “Microsoft Office Open XML” was on the spectrum of openness as was Adobe’s PDF but that Adobe’s PDF was more open. They gave specific examples. OpenDocument is even more open as it was an Oasis standard; Oasis being an organization that Microsoft themselves are members of.
Note: WordPerfect is adding OpenDocument support. Other office applications are also adding support, not just OpenOffice.org.
MS urged to drop patent claims, publish their standard and make future changes as part of a stewardship:
Adobe currently has patent claims to PDF. Sun and IBM have claims on OpenDoc. In both the MS case and the Adobe/Sun/IBM case, relief from patent claims are given via the respective licenses. Further, forcing MS to make future changes by comittee is an encumberance Adobe doesn’t have to follow, and is thus discriminitory. A rough quote made by the MA rep about PDF being on the gray side further supports that it’s discriminitory.
Adobe answered those questions in detail.
OpenDocument is an Oasis standard with the stipulation that any members of Oasis on the OpenDocument group (that means Sun and others) specifically relinquish claims to enforcing patentents they hold that may be convered by OpenDocument.
Once again, that was mentioned in the meeting that you said you listend to — though I’m begining to doubt very much!
A comment was made that you had to implement the full MS XML spec or you weren’t licensed. This is not true. MS’ license, like Adobe’s, says you have to output conforming docs or you can’t claim it’s MS XML nor be protected under the license.
This wasn’t in dispute, so why bring it up?
Even if you only output a subset of MS XML, (e.g., Open Office doesn’t support all of Word’s features so it only reads/writes what it can support), that XML still conforms to the schema definition.
1. Microsoft’s schema is not available under the “Microsoft Office Open XML” licence let alone any other claimed-to-be-open licence. Why mention it if it’s not available in the same way that OpenDocument’s schema is?
2. OpenOffice.org doesn’t attempt to support all of Microsoft’s Word formats…but that’s beside the point as this meeting was not an implementation meeting.
From MS’ license:
…
And yet, Microsoft’s own representitive did not dispute what I mentioned before when he was directly asked. Why not?
From Adobe’s license:
…
As mentioned in the meeting, Microsoft’s own representitive did not dispute the Adobe rep’s claims. In addition, unlike the “Microsoft Office Open XML” format, Adobe’s PDF is largely covered by ISO standards that allow unrestricted patent-free use.
False assumption that XML alone eases interstate/intergovernment/etc. document management/exchange.
Not the issue covered.
Comment period short and included a 3-day weekend. They claim they’re not ignoring comments past the deadline. MDAA already talking about banning MS software. Not clear if there is total transparency in MA’s motives.
The comments have been going on for a couple years. As was mentioned in the discussion. This should not be a surprise to Microsoft. Microsoft is a member of Oasis. They knew about OpenDocument. They could have joined the working group at any time. They chose not to.
They can implement OpenDocument if they wish without paying any outside body.
Because of that, Microsoft is still able to meet Massachusetts Commonwealth requirements if they so choose and be chosen during the implementaion stage.
As for banning MS software…I’ll give you that. I’m actually surprised you noticed it. After all, you didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the talk!
RE: Acessibility
Adobe addressed it on the mp3. PDF for accessibility is in the works (ie, like OpenDoc, not ready).
As I said, the assumption that formats/implementation discussion/consideration is seperate from costs is flawed. There’s a direct correlation between the two. And, as I said, the MA rep’s thoughts on migration costs were wrong. It’s negligent to go through all this talk of formats and technologies without consideration of costs.
Office XML — the examples given were discriminatory. They told MS to drop their patent claims. Again, both the chosen formats have related patents on them as well. In the same way that Adobe and Sun et al included a patent license but did not give up claims to those patents, so did MS. They didn’t give up all claims under OASIS. They only granted use of the patents for implementing the OpenDoc standard. Just as MS granted use of the patents specifically for implementing Office XML.
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/ipr.php
At no point in the meeting did they mention the schemas weren’t covered. The license on MS’ site speciffically covers the schemas.
The XML implementation (i.e., fully implementing the MS format or not being licensed) was in dispute, or at least wasn’t correctly addressed. The MS rep was asked about it but didn’t really say anything. In truth, conformance would be simply following the schema. The MS rep didn’t seem to be too well versed on the license as he could’ve clarified what the license actually said a few times but failed to do so. Maybe he just didn’t want to make a legal claim he wasn’t sure of. He should’ve had an attorney that was versed on the details. The bottom line is you should look at the actual license.
The issue of interchange was covered. It may not have been the specific subject of the meeting, but it showed just how clueless MA is about XML. They thought that if each government standardized on XML, even if not OpenDoc, they could just transform the other XML format to OpenDoc. What they failed to realize is even if transformed to OpenDoc, they could lose data and/or still not be able to read the document contents.
They can implement OpenDocument if they wish without paying any outside body.
If by “They” you mean MA, they’d still have to have a way of losslessly converting their current formats to OpenDoc.
If you mean MS, as I stated previously, MS implementing OpenDoc would be a trivial addition only if they added basic save support, which might be great for MS, but not so great for MA unless you want MA, for example, using Office without knowing which features they can’t use until they get ready save a document. Then again, MA could get this level of support and uncertainty via an XSLT.
Maybe I just paid too much attention to the talk. I can give you the time code of the specific items I addressed in that earlier post if you like. I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on the intelligence of this move by MA. The move is rushed even if they spent 2 years talking. They didn’t consider all the variables and I think it’s going to cost them. It should be easy enough to create new work in ODF/PDF. What will be difficult is conversion of existing works and external interchange unless MS or a competant ISV announces something new.
As I said, the assumption that formats/implementation discussion/consideration is seperate from costs is flawed. There’s a direct correlation between the two. And, as I said, the MA rep’s thoughts on migration costs were wrong. It’s negligent to go through all this talk of formats and technologies without consideration of costs.
It’s not that it’s flawed — it’s that the discussion of costs and implementation was not the topic of discussion, soverenty as emboddied by the document format was! (about 10-15 minutes into the discussion)
Office XML — the examples given were discriminatory. They told MS to drop their patent claims.
1. If Microsoft wants to promote “Microsoft Office Open XML” to The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, that’s what they were told to do by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
2. So, you agree “Microsoft Office Open XML” is patent encumbered?
Again, both the chosen formats have related patents on them as well. In the same way that Adobe and Sun et al included a patent license but did not give up claims to those patents, so did MS. They didn’t give up all claims under OASIS. They only granted use of the patents for implementing the OpenDoc standard. Just as MS granted use of the patents specifically for implementing Office XML.
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/ipr.php
* Sun, Adobe, and IBM have given roaylty free licences to anyone who wishes to use any patents when manipulating or creating OpenDocument documents. The licence is transferable and does not require permission from Oasis or any of the TC members.
* Microsoft has given non-transferable royalty free licences to individuals who get the licence from Microsoft. Additionally, without the schemas, you can’t create a compatable documents.
Not quite equal.
At no point in the meeting did they mention the schemas weren’t covered.
They did…
The license on MS’ site speciffically covers the schemas.
…in this context;
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpatentlicense.asp
“Microsoft may have patents and/or patent applications that are necessary for you to license in order to make, sell, or distribute software programs that read or write files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas.
[…]
You are not licensed to sublicense or transfer your rights.
I’m attempting to think of any open standard — we’re talking ISO or similar — that use these types of restrictions. Can you?
The XML implementation (i.e., fully implementing the MS format or not being licensed) was in dispute, or at least wasn’t correctly addressed. The MS rep was asked about it but didn’t really say anything.
Thank you.
In truth, conformance would be simply following the schema.
That falls down completely if you can’t resell or even give away your implementation. Very large organizations (Bank of America, for example) would still be very pressed to do it all inhouse without the ability to distribute or sell the work to other interested groups.
The MS rep didn’t seem to be too well versed on the license as he could’ve clarified what the license actually said a few times but failed to do so. Maybe he just didn’t want to make a legal claim he wasn’t sure of.
Microsoft’s National Technology Officer doesn’t know his companies licence? Seemed like he did to me!
He should’ve had an attorney that was versed on the details. The bottom line is you should look at the actual license.
So, not being a lawyer or a member of Microsoft myself, how am I supposed to treat the “Microsoft Office Open XML” licence? If you are right and he didn’t know the licence well enough, how am I (a mere mortal) going to trust it?
Almost forgot — someone at the conference floated the notion of MS adding support for OpenDoc in Office 12.
1)According to the MS comments on MA’s website, MA policy requires use of OpenDoc as the default file format. Even if this turns out not to be the case, MS offering OpenDoc support would not be a small feature request. As they do with their current legacy formats, they’d have to have an OpenDoc compatibility mode for Office that disables all features that can’t be persisted in the OpenDoc format so users don’t create or edit a document with the false assumption that the edits they make are applicable to OpenDoc.
Going back to migration/conversion costs, if MS added such support for OpenDoc in Office 12 and MA decided to upgrade because of it, MA would then incur greater costs than with Office XML because they’d have to upgrade for OpenDoc support vs. being able to use Office Open XML with their current versions of Office for free.
1)According to the MS comments on MA’s website, MA policy requires use of OpenDoc as the default file format. Even if this turns out not to be the case, MS offering OpenDoc support would not be a small feature request. As they do with their current legacy formats, they’d have to have an OpenDoc compatibility mode for Office that disables all features that can’t be persisted in the OpenDoc format so users don’t create or edit a document with the false assumption that the edits they make are applicable to OpenDoc.
Covered. Microsoft is a member of Oasis. They were able and capable of joining the OpenDocument format group. None of this should not be a surprise to them.
* If TextMaker can add OpenDocument support, so can Microsoft.
* If KOffice, AbiWord, and Gnumeric can add OpenDocument support, so can Microsoft.
* If WordPerfect can add OpenDocument support, so can Microsoft.
* If … currently about a dozen services and programs are adding OpenDocument support or have it, so can Microsoft;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument
Additionally, I know of _1_ difference between the OpenDocument’s text format and the current version of Word; Word has two levels of highlighting while OpenDocument has one. Did you know Microsoft’s Word had two levels? It was a surprise to me and so far everyone I’ve mentioned it to!
OpenDocument is a comprehensive specification, though, and covers more than text and spreadsheets;
* Text
* Spreadsheet
* Presentation
* Drawing
* Chart
* Formula
* Database
* Image
* Master Document
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument#File_types
Comment: It is OpenDocument not ‘OpenDoc’. OpenDoc is something entirely different. I used the right term for Microsoft’s format. Please use the right term for the Oasis office document format.
And yet, missing a fixed archival format
Though MS knew ODF was coming, it didn’t change the fact that they’d already been working on their own format transition for 5 years and their major concern was ensuring they had a full fidelity transition format. Why bother re-implementing support in ODF (and waiting on the standards process to do so) when you can continue the work started on WordML, SpreadsheetML, et al and be assured of compatibility?
And yet, missing a fixed archival format
Feel free to give an example.
Though MS knew ODF was coming, it didn’t change the fact that they’d already been working on their own format transition for 5 years and their major concern was ensuring they had a full fidelity transition format. Why bother re-implementing support in ODF (and waiting on the standards process to do so) when you can continue the work started on WordML, SpreadsheetML, et al and be assured of compatibility?
Now you’re just being stuborn;
* OpenDocument was based on StarOffice’s format, 6+ versions old at the time that the Oasis effort started. (StarOffice 8 is going to be released in the next few months.)
* Still on the table: Why can so many companies support OpenDocument and be on the Oasis standards commitee while it’s OK that Microsoft decided not to? Does this mean they get special credit for not working with others?
* Microsoft currently supports other non-Microsoft formats right now, so why make a special case for not supporting an Oasis standard; an organization they themselves are a member of and is made up of other competing companies?
So expecting MS to do what’s best for their business and their current customers is being stubborn? I see it as being smart.
OpenDocument was based on StarOffice’s format, 6+ versions old at the time that the Oasis effort started. (StarOffice 8 is going to be released in the next few months.)
And this standardization process started 4 years after MS had begun it’s own transition. 2 years before the process, people were already using the initial MS XML formats. MS should just throw away 4 years of existing work and 2 years of customers using their formats just so they can start all over, possibly ending up with a v1 format that doesn’t meet all their needs?
Office XML was being used by governments and ISVs well before ODF was standardized. ODF has just entered the market, and as MA themselves said, still has issues. It’s those issues and the iteration process that will cause many to wait on ODF in favor of MS XML (not to mention those currently using the previous formats).
Still on the table: Why can so many companies support OpenDocument and be on the Oasis standards commitee while it’s OK that Microsoft decided not to? Does this mean they get special credit for not working with others?
So MS is obligated to support every standard that comes along just because? They can’t evaluate each one and decide whether to support it based on the business case and/or demand for it? Also, why is MS itself expected to support OpenDocument? If some ISV put together an addon or standalone converter, they can support ODF and make money (or choose not to) doing so.
Microsoft currently supports other non-Microsoft formats right now, so why make a special case for not supporting an Oasis standard; an organization they themselves are a member of and is made up of other competing companies?
So MS can’t get special credit from not working on ODF, but it’s not a big deal for them to give special credit to ODF? Yes, MS is an OASIS member. MS has standards in OASIS as well. Should everyone be required to participate in and support every standard they submit?
One thing that’s been overlooked by many is that MS hasn’t announced everything that will be in Office 12. Maybe they can get ODF in w/o slowing their release schedule. Maybe they already planned to support it only as a last resort. What if, OTOH, the MS XML licensing was modified in such a way that satisfied MA and others? In that scenario ODF could be greatly weakened because people could get greater compatibility and richness from MS XML. Even without modification of the license, I see that as a problem for MA (the inter-government exchange scenario).
(same AC, posting from work)
I had a detailed response, but it’s really not important.
With today’s announcement from Sun and Google about the web-based OpenDocument-compliant version of OpenOffice/StarOffice, the world is a very very different place.
Now that the ball is in play, Microsoft can decide to join the game or be left out. It’s really up to them, though they should be careful how they decide what to do next.
Overall, this makes me very happy that I’ve decided to base my next project on OpenDocument and not narrowly focused on one product; Microsoft’s Office.
What happens when the network is down or not available for whatever reason?
I know in this case there’s the OOo/Star Office client, but some people think about Google taking over as a desktop in the sky without considering the full picture. I’m not saying you are. It’s just that your post got me thinking about it again.
MS is long from being out of the game. Different players, different ball, same game. Where it ends is anyone’s guess. Office could still support ODF (or not — ODF is not the only or highest priority item on their TODO list). If they don’t, the Windows team could decide to support it (or not — ODF is not the only/highest priority item on their TODO list). There are plenty of plays they can make but the game is just starting.
> MS is long from being out of the game.
They become irrelevent to many more, though.
“Once again, this is false. MS Office currently has XML formats that have been available for 2 years as part of Office 2003. Documents in these formats are readable in any application that has a licensed implementation for reading/writing the files. MS provides Office 2003 and several format viewers for this purpose. Open Office/Star Office provides support for the formats, and several third-party commercial products support the formats. When Office 12 XML formats are finalized, they will be supported directly by MS for Office 2000, XP, 2003, Office 12, and viewer applications. The license is the same as the current 2003 formats, so it’s expected Open/Star Office and other third-parties will also provide support just as with the current formats.”
Please look here;
http://osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=12075&comment_id=39557
Please listen to the linked audio file as it is original source information and not subject to the comments made on OS News; it’s more objective and includes replies from multiple groups with strongly differing opinions. Most of the important issues are discussed in detail there and are easy enough to understand.
OpenDocument is dead in the water unless MS adds support to it for Word. Without support in Word few companies will use it because they know the odds of someone on the other end receiving it being able to use it are low. Also, a company would have to switch over every computer they have at once to something like OpenOffice so they can read them. And still you have all the old MS office files out there they would have to convert or something.
All MS has to do, it not support it, and this new format will die in short enough time.
> OpenDocument is dead in the water unless MS adds support to it for Word.
Why? OpenOffice already has conversion filters for OpenOffice and MS-Word in a library. (I believe KOffice uses this library too). All someone needs to do is to write a “Save/Open” plugin for MSWord. Microsoft gives you the tools to write this plugin and the OpenOffice lib provides the implementation. Do you really think no-one will step up to the challenge and put the two together?
People begin using Open Office
People stop buying MS Office
People start buying Ubuntu based computers preloaded with Open Office
People never get around to buying Vista
Microsoft has two cash cows which support their massive, free market stifling influence. Mad cow disease, in the form of Google+Sun (GUN is a good acronym), is about to free us from our evil bovine overlords.
broken link?